Pope John XXIII surprised the whole world when on January 25, 1959, he announced the first Ecumenical Council to be called since 1870. After three years of intense preparation, the Second Vatican Council became a reality on October 11, 1962, and for the next eight weeks the eyes of Protestant and Catholic, believer and unbeliever alike, were focused on St. Peter’s Basilica. Universally acknowledged as the most important religious event of the twentieth century to date, this council owes the success of its first session primarily to the personality and concern of one who was at first expected to be little more than an interim pope. Even now, although the council is officially in recess until September 8, various theological documents are being prepared by theological commissions and studied by prelates all over the world in preparation for the second session.
Protestantism has undoubtedly paid more attention to this council than it did to the two others held since the Reformation, Trent (1545–63) and Vatican I (1869–70), both of which were highly significant for Protestants and Protestant-Catholic relations. The reason is obvious. For the first time since the Reformation, the Catholic Church is showing itself to be officially concerned about those millions of Christians outside its jurisdiction. The very presence of a number of Protestant observers in the council congregations is overt evidence that the Twenty-First Ecumenical Council will be of tremendous significance to Protestant Christians everywhere. Now that we are between sessions, it is perhaps apposite to engage in both a backward and a forward look at Vatican II.
What the Council Means
The most important aspect of this council is the fact that the Catholic Church recognizes to some extent that it needs to be brought up to date—an outlook not widely anticipated in some Catholic circles, where talk of a council of reform struck many ears as most surprising and unprecedented. Some American bishops who looked forward to being little more than rubber stamps were also surprised during the council’s first session by the freedom of discussion and the expressed desire for an internal renewal of the church. It was Pope John himself who spoke of an aggiornamento, a need to make the church more relevant to the present age. There are, of course, many areas of belief and practice with which the first session of the council did not deal, but concerning which Protestants are most interested. Such questions as the celibacy of the clergy, the relation of the church to religious freedom, the rules governing mixed marriages, the continuing growth of Mariology, and the future role of the laity in religious affairs are of utmost concern to every Protestant, and, it is hoped, will be items of major importance on the agenda of this fall’s session. One or two definite conclusions can already be made on the basis of discussion during the first session of the council, of course. We may expect to hear English used in the American celebration of the mass. Such a change will mean that the Roman Catholic liturgy will strike many Protestants as much more similar to Anglican and Lutheran rites than it has in the past. Even more important for Protestant theology, if somewhat less spectacular, future formulations of the doctrine of revelation will undoubtedly avoid any rigid division of Scripture and Tradition into two distinct sources. Now that the liberal Cardinal Bea is working with the integralist Cardinal Ottaviani, whose schema attempting to repeat such a strict dichotomy was rejected by a majority of council officials, informed observers expect to see the relationship between Scripture and Tradition spelled out in terms which will be more acceptable to Protestant thought. Some Catholics have even gone so far as to suggest that the rejection of Cardinal Ottaviani’s schema on revelation marks the end of a 400-year Protestant-Catholic cold war. As if to bear out this claim, a few of the council’s schemata have already begun to show an ecumenical preference for biblical rather than controversial scholastic language.
The most significant results of this council, however, are the more intangible ones. Protestants have seen a new openness, flexibility, and charity in the Roman church which they did not anticipate. No longer can the image of a monolithic structure, partly promoted by certain segments within the church itself, be maintained. These conservative segments have pointed with pride to the absolute uniformity of Catholic teaching in the face of the great diversity of Protestant thought; the mentality and even beliefs of the more “progressive” bishops at the council, however, gave a much more varied or “Protestant” picture of Rome to the world, and made it patent that even Rome is not as immune as some would pretend to such changes as the liturgical movement, the biblical revival, and the patristic renaissance which have made deep inroads into the French Catholic Church. It is, in fact, primarily the bishops from northern Europe (France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland) that are changing the stereotype of Catholicism which has existed among Protestants since the Reformation. They are the real agents of that renewal of which Pope John spoke, and they give the promise that a more liberal, more biblical, more “Protestant” element will play a much greater role in future Catholic thought. Among them are the church’s greatest living theologians, Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, Jean Daniélou, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Hans Küng. It seems likely that the “fresh air” the Pope seeks will come from these men, rather than from the archconservative members within the Roman Curia (the Vatican civil service).
It is most significant that this more progressive segment of the church is largely from northern Europe, the region in which Catholics have perhaps had the most contact with Protestantism. The “dialogue” which has been going on in these countries can be expected to increase in America as a direct result of the council, and to have a direct and dramatic influence on those countries where Protestantism is now experiencing the greatest restrictions. The Protestant monastery at Taizé in France, though not an accurate barometer of Protestant-Catholic dialogue, is one significant example of such European interaction. The recent words of Cardinal Bea (director of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity) on religious liberty, and his forthcoming book, The Unity of Christians, join with Spanish Foreign Minister Castiella’s attempts to guarantee greater religious liberty for Spain’s Protestants to further underline the fact that there are Catholics who sincerely desire to destroy stumblingblocks to a union of Christians against their common enemies, Communism and materialism.
One of the prickliest problems likely to come up when the second session of the council opens next September is one which the 1870 Vatican Council never handled, namely, the authority of bishops. Many feel that if invading Italian troops had not unceremoniously terminated Vatican I, the doctrine of infallibility would have been extended to include bishops in council as well as the pope. Writers on the 1962 council often speak of the “renewal of the episcopate”; whether such a renewal will involve a broadening or a redefining of the whole concept of infallibility (as in the case of biblical infallibility) to make it somewhat more palatable and acceptable to Eastern Orthodoxy and to Protestantism is the big issue, of course. One often has the impression that growth and development takes place within the unchangeable Rome primarily because theologians do pour new meaning into ancient papal encyclicals. It is hard for a Protestant, for example, to feel that Pius X, who condemned Modernism in 1907, would approve of some of the developments in Catholic biblical studies today. Nor is it likely that Pius XI, who condemned the Protestant ecumenical movement in 1928, would approve of current developments in the doctrine of the Church to include Protestants in the “hidden wealth of the Church’s unity.”
It is also significant that the present Pope desires to do away with some of the church’s traditional pomp and ceremony, with the love of bigness and temporal power, which tend to repel many of those outside the Catholic Church who point to the simplicity and humility of the early Church and its Founder. No one can yet say whether the council as a whole will come to a more spiritual and less material view of the Body of Christ as a result of the Pope’s concern; but if it does, Protestants might be justified in inferring that after many decades a more spiritual emphasis in the doctrines of grace and the sacraments might also result in a more conciliatory view of these beliefs, both so crucial to any material progress toward union. If so, of course, Martin Luther’s great solicitude for a more spiritual definition of these two doctrines will have at last been more amply rewarded; such a conclusion is now only idle speculation, it is true, but Protestants should keep their ears open for the possible emergence of such trends on the council floor next September. Already some Catholics are confessing that the Counter-Reformation promulgated a one-sided emphasis on the visible, juridical, and hierarchical at the expense of the invisible and spiritual which the Reformers stressed. Unbridled optimism is ruled out, however, by the fact that as recently as 1943 Pius XII in the encyclical Mystici Corporis emphasized a doctrine of the Church that is at times inimical to a rapprochement with the classical Protestant view.
Also of significance is the changing composition of the council itself. In 1870 Italians made up more than one-third of the official membership of the general congregation, more than all the rest of Europe. Non-Europeans were represented at this council only by Europeans, rather than by national bishops. Vatican II has cut back the preponderance of Italian influence considerably, for today out of over 2,600 prelates from around the world only 313 are Italian. That Italy is still too heavily represented, however, is apparent when it is realized that the rest of Europe has a total of only 415. But the fact that there were participants of every color and race gave a genuinely intercontinental flavor to the council for the first time in history. One of the most urgent demands is that the Curia be likewise internationalized to eliminate the overwhelming percentage of Italian hegemony. Reform of the press information services is also being demanded, with some American Catholics expressing the faint hope that a small number of official reporters will be admitted to future sessions of the council.
What the Council Does Not Mean
At the same time, it should not be forgotten that official statements have been made pointing out what the council does not intend to do. For example, the Pope himself has emphasized the fact that the purpose of the council is not to define new dogmas, nor to pronounce anathemas against doctrinal errors. Rather it is to relate the church and its teachings more closely to the modern world, and to emphasize the pastoral side of the church’s ministry. Thus Protestants are not to expect anything like an approval of the doctrines of the Reformation—although at least one Protestant, the secretary general of the French Reformed Church, has said that the reasons for reformation are even greater today than they were in the sixteenth century. As one studies the council, however, he is almost forced to conclude that if doctrinal changes will not be officially proclaimed at the end of the council, at least the seeds of such changes will have been planted. Nowhere is this more evident than in conciliar discussions of the relation between Scripture and Tradition.
Nor should Protestants assume that the council has brought or will bring about a union of divided Christendom. One Catholic has wisely said that if the union of Protestants and Catholics is ever to take place, it is still centuries away. Another Catholic has acknowledged that many Catholic theologians, especially in the United States, are still apprehensive of the very idea of ecumenical dialogue and union. But the very fact that such an idea is being widely entertained is ample proof that the council has done more than anything else in four and one-half centuries to thaw the icy silence between these blocks of Christians. The Pope’s aim is apparently that the church will so clean house that union will be attractive to those now separated from it. Evangelical Protestants would universally agree that if Rome could become truly biblical, such a union would become theoretically possible. However, they also feel that such a development is not on the horizon of possibility in the immediate future. The main problem is that for most Catholics unity means something quite different than it does for Protestants, an important point which is sometimes forgotten in discussions on unity. To the majority of Catholics reunion involves an acceptance by Protestants of Roman Catholic teaching, whereas Protestants tend to think of reunion as the result of much debate during which spiritual truth would be slowly and painfully constructed on a biblical foundation. One English Catholic theologian said recently, for example, that before union can ever take place Protestants will have to recover in its entirety the doctrine of the change of the elements of communion into the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Yet another Catholic theologian admitted that Catholics are now beginning to realize that they too must change. Objectivity forces us to admit, therefore, that the new Rome seems to promise greater latitude to its own theologians than it has allowed in the past. And who can deny that the presence of over 200,000,000 Protestants within a future united Christian Church would inevitably result in some revolutionary changes in the outlook and belief of the whole Church? If Catholic theologians can pour new meaning into such old ideas as infallibility, who is to say that the day will not come when Protestants and Catholics can come to an essential agreement? In a day when numbers of Catholics are admitting that they are to some extent responsible for the present and past division of the Church, such a day might be nearer than we think.
A third caution to unwarranted optimism, however, is the fact that the archconservatives or hyper-fundamentalists, known in Catholic circles as “integralists,” are still a force of major dimensions in the Catholic Church. The basic attitude of this group is the “preservation of the purity of Catholic doctrine,” which many Catholic writers opposed to this movement suggest amounts to little more than excessive enthusiasm for the thought forms of the nineteenth-century manuals in dogmatic theology. While evangelicals appreciate the importance of orthodoxy and theological conservatism in a way not shared by radical Protestantism, they cannot easily sympathize with a mentality which seems to enshrine the thought of the past and refuse to interact with the developments of the twentieth century. This is the impression which integralist thought, with its elevation of “preservation” to the pinnacle of importance, sometimes leaves with the evangelical reader. The integralist projects an image of rigid refusal to consider any kind of dialogue with Protestantism. He looks equally askance at Reformer and Modernist, and wants no intercourse with either. Italy, Spain, Latin America, and the United States are areas in which integralism appears to be strongest.
Evangelicals and the Dialogue
What stance should the evangelical take to the “fresh air” which the Second Vatican Council has ushered into the Catholic Church? By and large we have not played a significant role to date in any dialogue which has taken place between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Yet we do in fact stand in an ideal position to mediate between radical Protestantism and Catholicism. Although we are Protestant, we uphold essentially the same doctrine of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ as does the Catholic. We are closer to Rome than to the World Council of Churches in our attitude toward the Nicene Creed. And like Roman Catholicism we feel there is a fundamental distinction between truth and error. These are just a few of the central beliefs which Rome and the evangelical have in common with the classical Protestantism of the Reformation.
Regardless of what happens during the second session of the Vatican Council, it seems probable that the world of the future will see a Catholicism which is more biblically oriented and a Protestantism which has a greater concern for doctrinal purity. We may admit that neither group yet shows the effect of such tendencies on its laity to any marked degree; we may even feel some justifiable pride that classical orthodoxy has maintained both emphases. Far more important, however, is that we try to understand what both Roman Catholicism and radical Protestantism are saying, because at times our polemic has been shallow and offensive, reflective of a ghetto mentality we should by now have outgrown. The new approach of the Catholic Church is one with which evangelicals can agree ex animo: know what the other side believes, know what it thinks we believe, know what it thinks we lack, speak a language it can understand, avoid language that will give unnecessary offense, and refuse to engage in bitter polemics. In the current ecumenical atmosphere, we as evangelical Protestants need to be aware that Jesus Christ is challenging us to demonstrate that we as the people of God are the real Body of Christ, the Church invisible, to which both radical Protestant and Roman Catholic are invited to return, not in slavish submission but in believing, apostolic faith.
LESLIE R. KEYLOCK
Research Assistant in Religion
State University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa
